By Sarina Trangle
The ex-convict charged in the murder of a 6-year-old boy and stabbing of his 7-year-old playmate in a Brooklyn housing project was arrested blocks away from his mother’s South Ozone Park home, where court documents show he was charged with the crime that sent him to prison.
Daniel St. Hubert, 27, pleaded guilty in 2012 to second-degree attempted murder after a criminal complaint charged him with choking his mother with an electrical cord and saying, “Mom, I’m going to kill you.”
St. Hubert’s mother had an order of protection barring him from her home on 146th Street near 133rd Avenue during the time of the attack, according to the complaint.
Days after St. Hubert was released from his five-year prison sentence, the Police Department cuffed him near 133rd Avenue and 145th Street June 4.
He was arraigned June 5 in Brooklyn Criminal Court on second-degree murder, second-degree attempted murder, assault and criminal possession of a weapon charges.
His attorney, Edward Friedman, declined to comment on the charges, but said St. Hubert was currently at Bellevue Hospital, where the lawyer expects an assessment to gauge his client’s mental health.
The criminal complaint said witnesses saw St. Hubert running from East New York’s Boulevard Houses, where 6-year-old Joshua Avitto was found stabbed to death in an elevator and his 7-year-old friend Mikayla Capers suffered a lacerated spleen caused by multiple stab wounds.
Detectives said they found a bloody knife where witnesses saw St. Hubert trip and fall, according to the criminal complaint. The medical examiner’s office determined the knife had St. Hubert’s DNA on it, the document said.
The NYPD is also eyeing St. Hubert in the fatal stabbing of Tanaya Grant-Copeland in East New York May 30 and the slashing of a homeless man on the No. 1 train platform in Chelsea June 4, according to the New York Post.
St. Hubert’s sister, Judith Perry, told the Post her family had concerns about her brother’s mental health and had begged social workers to ensure he would receive psychiatric care upon his release from prison.
“When he was released, they didn’t give him any kind of psychiatric evaluations or anything like that,” she told the Post. “They basically just sent him on his way.”
His attorney acknowledged that St. Hubert’s mental health was an issue in prior criminal cases and said he planned to review documents to determine whether proper prison release protocols were followed.
Reach reporter Sarina Trangle at 718-260-4546 or by e-mail at strangle@cnglocal.com.
